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An essay is presented on the various problems of the British legal system and how the environmental court establishment could resolve them. The creation of an environmental court would aid with lack of enforcement because it would not be reluctant in imposing appropriate penalties, which include imprisonment if necessary, and insist on polluted sites' decontamination.

The article discusses several studies on infection prevention, published in various medical journals as of July 2016 including the role of parents in the promotion of hand hygiene of children, environmental contamination after occupancy of a burns patient, and acquisition of Clostridium (C.) difficile on hands of healthcare personnel caring for patients with resolved C. difficile infection.

Introduction The responsibility of ensuring impressions have been cleaned and disinfected before dispatch to the dental laboratory lies solely with the dentist. Uncertainty of impression disinfection risks both the health of the receiving dental technician and potential repeat disinfection of an already disinfected impression with detrimental consequences for its dimensions. Objective To ascertain, from the perspectives of dentists and dental technicians, current impression decontamination and disinfection practices with, in the case of the technicians, an estimate of the relative prevalence of contaminated voids within apparently disinfected impressions. Design Anonymous postal questionnaire. Method Dentist (n = 200) and dental technician (n = 200) potential participants, selected at random from the registers held by the General Dental Council, were invited to complete an anonymous postal questionnaire that sought to establish current practices and perceived effectiveness of impression disinfection. Results Questionnaire return rates of 42.1% and 31.2% were recorded for dentists and dental technicians respectively. A wide range of solutions, at different dilutions of the same product, was used by the dentists to disinfect dental impressions. 37.2% rinsed the impressions with water, and 2.6% always brushed debris away, before disinfection. 24.7% of dentists did not inform the laboratory of disinfection. Irrespective of the disinfection status of the received impressions, 50% of the responding dental technicians disinfected all impressions. 95% of them had received blood-contaminated impressions. 15% had encountered blood-filled voids upon trimming back the peripheries of impressions. 64.7% were confident that the impressions received by them had been disinfected by the dentists. Conclusions Compliance with good practice is less than ideal and education in impression disinfection for both dentists and dental technicians is required to address this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic information sources are increasingly relied upon for clinical management advice. TOXBASE is a standardised online resource that offers clinical advice on the management of poisoned patients and is the first point of contact between clinicians and the National Poisons Information Service in the United Kingdom. Advice is delivered using a series of standard phrases. The present study examined how healthcare professionals interpret the phrases and studied their impact on clinical decision-making. A structured prospective written questionnaire was offered to healthcare staff in the Lothian region, and an electronic questionnaire issued to TOXBASE users across the United Kingdom. Participants were asked to respond to a variety of scenarios representing acutely poisoned patients. Clinical management advice was offered via TOXBASE using a variety of standard phrases, and participants were asked to express the likelihood that they would then administer gut decontamination treatment. There were 70 respondents to written questionnaires, and 119 respondents to the electronic version. Phrases that included didactic instructions, for example ‘give’, ‘contraindicated’, ‘do’ and ‘perform’ were associated with strongly positive or strongly negative responses. In contrast, advice that consisted of open phrases such as ‘consider’, ‘benefit uncertain’, and ‘few data’ were associated with inconsistent responses. Didactic words and phrases are associated with more consistent interpretation and response than open-ended words and phrases. The choice of words and phrases used in electronic systems can have an independent impact on clinical decision-making and require further consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decontamination of exposed persons is a priority following the release of toxic chemicals. Efficacious decontamination reduces the risk of harm to those directly affected and prevents the uncontrolled spread of contamination. Human studies examining the effectiveness of emergency decontamination procedures have primarily focused on decontaminating skin, with few examining the decontamination of hair and scalp. We report the outcome of two studies designed to evaluate the efficacy of current United Kingdom (UK) improvised, interim and specialist mass casualty decontamination protocols when conducted in sequence. Decontamination efficacy was evaluated using two chemical simulants, methyl salicylate (MeS) and benzyl salicylate (BeS) applied to and recovered from the hair of volunteers. Twenty-four-hour urinary MeS and BeS were measured as a surrogate for systemic bioavailability. Current UK decontamination methods performed in sequence were partially effective at removing MeS and BeS from hair and underlying scalp. BeS and MeS levels in urine indicated that decontamination had no significant effect on systemic exposure raising important considerations with respect to the speed of decontamination. The decontamination of hair may therefore be challenging for first responders, requiring careful management of exposed persons following decontamination. Further work to extend these studies is required with a broader range of chemical simulants, a larger group of volunteers and at different intervention times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the launch of the Initial Operational Response (IOR) programme in Great Britain in order to deal with chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) attack as of February 2014. It mentions that the IOR programme will help front-line emergency services in order to deal with CBR victims. It also mentions that the programme is based on the Optimisation through Research of Chemical Incident Decontamination Systems (ORCHIDS) led by the British Health Protection Agency (HPA).

The author describes her sabbatical research on landfills and brownfields in Great Britain, as well as environmental health, sociocultural factors, and community involvement. Contamination prevention and remediation methods are noted, such as the soil decontamination of the site of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Other topics include waste reclamation, the role of environmental health officers (EHOs) in the community, and comparison of environmental health policies in the U.S. and Great Britain.

The article discusses the decontamination services offered by British dental health services provider Henry Schein Dental, ensuring compliance with the HTM 01-05 guidelines.

Reports on the modern personal protection equipment suits and decontamination units issued in Great Britain in 2002 in order for the National Health Service to have the equipment it needs to deal with industrial and chemical incidents. Number of suits and units issued by the Department of Health; Number of units and suits issued by the Scottish Executive; Number of units and suits distributed by the Welsh Assembly.